Page 8 of Spirit Storm

I totally forgot. I turn back to the Order liaison and see the curious looks on my sister’s faces. “Right, you left before we rescued my sisters. Come. I want you to meet them.”

I tug her over and introduce her. “Violet and Lily, this is Mica.”

Mica looks from my sisters to me and back again. “Wow, you found them. That’s amazing.”

“And now we’re being dragged away again,” Lily snaps. “You’d think we’d been through enough, and they’d leave us alone. But nooo.”

My youngest sister is in her ‘sixteen and dripping in sarcasm’ phase. I send Mr. Marsh a look of apology. “With what you’ve been through, I agree giving you a moment to catch your breath would’ve been nice, but magical overload and the safety of yourself and others are important, too. The Order is right to be concerned.”

Lily glares at me like I’ve just rammed a dagger into her heart.

Wow, was I this pissy at sixteen? Honestly, no. Asher and I were more concerned with eating and surviving than getting our way.

“All right. You two go upstairs and pack a suitcase. If those who know what’s going on think you need to be in Arcana, we’ll respect that for now. We’ll see how the next few days play out and we’ll reevaluate.”

Violet nods. “All right. If it means we get to access our magic, I won’t fight it. But being there will be very temporary, because I want my life back.”

“Agreed. I want that for all of us.”

As my sisters head out of the kitchen and Lily stomps up the stairs, I turn to Mr. Marsh. “Sorry about that.”

He waves my apology away and pulls out his phone. “I’m going to step out to the back porch to make a call while they ready to leave.”

The front door opens, and Somebuddy and Nobuddy launch into the eight-legged scramble of racing nails on hardwood to get to the front foyer.

“Excuse me a moment,” Caldwell says, heading toward the sliding glass doors at the back of the house.

Wylder comes down the hall and takes in the scene. The disappointment that I’ve obviously not taken care of the issue in the half hour it took him to drive back here is replaced the moment he sees Mica standing beside Asher.

His gaze widens, and he breaks out in a bright, broad smile. “Welcome home, stranger.”

Mica meets him with a hug.

“Are you good? Survived your adventure unscathed?”

"Mostly." She glances down at her forearms, where a network of faint scorch lines climbs toward her elbows. "Give or take a few rite of passage moments.”

“But check out her guns.” Asher waggles his brows, pointing at Mica’s upper arms. “Kapow, chickie.”

Mica chuckles. “Forging for three months straight will do that to you.”

"Three months?" I shake my head and meet Asher’s confusion with my own. "Mica, you've been gone three weeks."

She opens her mouth, pauses, and then we all look to Wylder.

"The forge is incredibly powerful and hides itself in pocket dimensions.” Wylder pulls a stool out from under the breakfast bar at the island and sits. "They run on their own temporal current, separate from this plane entirely.”

I blink at him, finding his cranial speak both baffling and incredibly sexy.

He arches a dark brow as if he can hear my thoughts and continues. “It’s like how Arcana isn’t synced up to time here.”

Mica steps back and props her butt against the back of the couch. “Well, there was no way I was ready to come back after three weeks, so I guess that works. Hell, I’d barely begun the trials."

"What trials?" I move to the armchair across from her.

She's quiet for a moment, looking at her hands. The scorch lines, the calluses, the way her knuckles have the roughness of someone who's been working with fire and metal at close range for months.

“To become the Guardian of the Cinderheart Crucible. The forge chose me, and I chose it back, but then I had to prove myself.”